Sub-10TB market beckons

Apparently there are lots of mainframes operated by SMBs, typically hospitals, universities and local government organisations. They often have less than 10TB of data, and, Bus-Tech says, current mainframe VTLs are overkill for them in terms of capacity and price.

So Bus-Tech has built its MDL-100S product, saying it's a more affordable, end-to-end, SMB VTL. It comes with 4.5TB of usable RAID disk storage. Assuming a 2.5-to-1 compression ratio it presents more than 11TB of capacity for tape data, equivalent to more than 5,500 fully-utilised 3490E cartridges. Bus-Tech reckons SMB mainframe shops should view it as a tape-replacement product.

Data protection options include Virtuent Replicator for scheduled or mainframe-initiated asynchronous replication over IP to secondary and tertiary sites. Virtuent Tape Backup gives users the option to backup the internal disks to an IBM LTO-4 tape autoloader if they don't actually want to replace tape.

The MDL-100S is available in either FICON or ESCON configurations and emulates up to 32 tape drives (3480/90 and 3590) on the mainframe. Pricing starts at $35,000 and it is available immediately. ®